Concord blog targets local GOP with petition

HalfwayToConcord.com, a local blog site where the authors are well known for their willingness to publicly smack around folks at the Contra Costa Republican Party, has posted a downloadable petition calling for a state and county investigation into party activities.

It’s yet another visible sign of reoccurring dysfunction in a local elected committee of Republicans fraught with internal conflicts and leadership struggles.

Critics say the elected committee has, among other things, illegally used its resources to favor one of the 10th Congressional District candidates, mismanaged its money and failed to to remove member Tom Del Becarro, also vice chairman of the California Republican Party, for missing meetings.

Some committee members have sent complaint letters to the state party but no one has paid them much attention. Now, it appears, they hope the Secretary of State and the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office will take note.

Lisa Vorderbrueggen

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Lisa,
Your Analysis and Conclusion hides important truths from your readers and damages our community.
Your presentation gives the impression that you have thoroughly read and analyzed all of the facts and suggests that your readers need not review the details of the information themselves.

Your audience and our community would be better served, if you brought the important facts to your summary. The facts are that several people are trying to get the Republican central committee to obey the law during this special election cycle, and several people are insisting that the group not obey the Election laws.

In your conclusion, you paint all parties with the same brush, labeling them as “Dysfunctional” You attempt to externalize them as a remote enclave, when in fact they are part of our community.

If election laws VIOLATIONS are left unchecked in one corner and allowed to occur by ALL the voters in this community, then that inspires others to break the law to advance their cause.

If your readers examine the details themselves, they will see some people are trying to do good for the community, some people are trying to do wrong by the community. The question is: “What is Lisa trying to do, by hiding the truth from her readers?”

It would be great to see that Voters of CA-10 read the details and request the authorities HALT Election Law Violations. Please post your results here.

you guys are too much!

Wow, the Halfwaytoconcord guys are on the attack!

Jesse, If Lisa was trying to hide facts, than why would she present a copy of the petition to the public?

Your analysis of this entry shows bias and that is also something that hurts the community. Also, it appears that the Halfwaytoconcord crowd only cares about campaign violations by people they don’t like. Not once did they scream at the rain when Warren Rupf violated FPPC laws with his mailer about Mary Piepho.

Furthermore, what are you crazy GOP’ers doing in CD-10 anyways? Shouldn’t you be in the central valley or Texas where you can actually win an election with this drivel?

Arne Simonsen

What a bunch of hogwash!

This is just another failed attempt by the “Ron Paul” Republicans to try and take over the CCRP! They are still made that Ron Paul was not the Republican candidate for President!

They failed when they brought this to the CAGOP convention and their accusations were refuted on an 18-0 vote by the Rules Committee.

And if their complaints were valid, they would have filed a complaint with the FPPC and the FEC; not the Contra Costa District Attorney Office and the Secretary of State (although the FPPC is under the Secretary of State’s office, complaints are filed directly with the FPPC, not the Secretary of State).

One has to wonder if some of those members weren’t planted in the CCRP to benefit that other political party.

bjd

I loved everything you had to say until that last bit of partisan hackory!

Republicans aren’t bad, a conspiracy by democrats to influence the CCRP, a group that hasn’t won an election in what, a decade, is totally more reasonable than the simple idea that the GOP in this state is in shambles….

Arne, you still have yard signs up, why don’t you worry about taking those down before you blame the Democrats for CCRP hogwash.

Elwood

Lisa, stop hiding the truth from your readers!

That is very naughty of you!

:^)

Lisa Vorderbrueggen

Yep, that’s what we reporters do. We spend time finding out stuff and then we don’t tell anybody about it. Good grief.

In the good old days before blogs, reporters had time to actually report and talk to sources before putting out information. Now, everyone wants instantaneous analysis.

Have patience, people.

I am checking out these allegations and I plan to report what I find in my Sunday column. Real reporting takes time and thought, something that seems to be in seriously short supply in today’s online madness.

In the meantime, in case you wonder what I am doing with my time, I have been preparing biography boxes about the 11 major party candidates in the 10th Congressional District special primary election. I have also compiled their views on eight federal policy issue areas, which will appear in a grid on Sunday that allows voters to compare the candidates. In addition, I am writing an overview story on the race, all of which is scheduled to run on Aug. 2. This has involved interviews with almost all of the candidates (except those that have refused to talk to me or left on vacation), arrangements for all the mug shots, preparation of companion material for online, dozens of email follow-up messages, etc.

In other words, I’ve been busy working on the coverage of a election where the outcome will have a whole lot more impact on voters, frankly, than what’s going on over at the Republican Central Committee.

Is there truly evidence to support your premise that bias itself harms a community?

Wouldn’t a healthy community instead make room for all view points instead of anonymous cowards attacking people instead of arguments, as if they themselves don’t themselves have a bias?

What’s even sadder is these same anonymous cowards then represent their own bias as the voice of the community.

Your sniffling about Sheriff Rupf is absolutely precious.

Jesse L.

Lisa,
Granted you have a following of bloggers who trail along behind you, and some have bad history.
But when you label them all as “Dysfunctional”,
that’s like blaming the firemen and the arsonist for the damage done.
Your biography boxes are worthless, if you ignore the CCRP attorneys plans to channel all resources to a backroom determined candidate two months prior to the election. http://www.halfwaytoconcord.com/harmer-gop-violate-election-code/
Your issues summary is Window dressing on the burnt down building.

bjd

I like how BGR makes a comment and then comes back a half hour later to be like “oh yeah!I forgot!”.

Arne,
The best thing that has happened to many of our local Republican County Central Committees has been supporters of Republican Congressman Ron Paul getting involved and playing an active roll in Party politics.

Why is it so hard for the Grand Old Party to realize that it could use an infusion of organized people, who are young, energetic and committed to re-build the Party from the ground up? This is what we need now more than ever!

If Ron Paul supporters were “mad” that Ron Paul was not the Republican candidate for President, why wouldn’t they simply just go and register with another Party, as opposed to wasting away their time volunteering with the CCRP? Why not go and hold rallies and walk precincts for the other Parties and their candidates to get back at the GOP? That would make more sense to me.

You say, “One has to wonder if some of those members weren’t planted in the CCRP to benefit that other political party.”

Is this your conspiracy theory? Do you really believe that the Democratic machine in the Bay Area cares enough to do that? I don’t! My guess is that they could care less about what has become an irrelevant local and state GOP. What have we done to deserve their attention?

Here’s a little does of reality Arne…

Ron Paul appealed to Republicans, Decline to State, American Independents, Constitution Party members and even Democrats. Ron Paul sets the standard of what it means to build the Party (registering new Republican voters is very important to the super-minority Party, right??). Supporters of Ron Paul’s presidential campaign (who were inspired, not hired) raised more money in one day than any other Presidential campaign in history (6.1 million). The GOP would be wise to tap into that resource, wouldn’t you think?

You say, “They failed when they brought this to the CAGOP convention and their accusations were refuted on an 18-0 vote by the Rules Committee.”

If something was brought to the CAGOP Rules Committee we should consider the fact that Chairman Ron Nehring and Vice Chairman Tom Del Beccaro have installed their people on that committee. The 18-0 vote reflects this bias. Plus, whatever accusations that were brought at the convention were prior to the concerns made public by CCRP committee members in regards to the endorsement of Mr. Harmer and possible Elections Code violations. Therefore, the Rules Committee did not even review this issue.

If CCRP committee members didn’t file their complaint with the proper authority, why not help them out and point them in the right direction. After all, we are the “law and order” Party… just ask Del Beccaro… he loves that line.

Ted Hudacko

Arne, your statement is not logical and is a red herring. Even if Bill Gram-Reefer’s petition were directed to the wrong authorities, that would have no bearing whatsoever on the validity of the underlying assertions.

Bill Gram-Reefer’s Petition concerns violations of California Elections Code and Government Code. Readers can decide for themselves if the Secretary of State Election Fraud or the DA’s Govt. Corruption do indeed handle these types of complaints:

Arne, there are six GOP candidates running in the CD-10 race, not one. This isn’t the Soviet Politburo or a banana republic, at least not yet, if enough stand on their hind legs and demand the rule of law. Ensuring a level playing field for all of our candidates will do more to grow the party and build a big tent in the long run than brokered back room deals. Concoct all the conspiracy theories you want, but it’s the CCRP leadership and their enablers who are hurting the party most.

I have to respond to Arne Simonsen since he is so far out in left field without a glove. What does Ron Paul have to do with the problems the CCRP has today?

I am one of those who is unhappy with the leadership choosing to use the bylaws only in a way that fits theie desires, not following what the bylaws require, hiding financial information etc. You can’t classify me as a Ron Paul guy (and, again, what does Ron Paul have to do with this?)

There are many others unhappy with the Committee and its operation. Most are not what you can call Ron Paul people. I still don’t know why Ron Paul is such an explosive name to some of you.

Yes, I took the problem to the GOP Credentials Committee, along with Wendy Lack (not a Ron Pauler either) and got short shrift. They wouldn’t even read the package of material we put together to prove our case. And they wouldn’t accept it in advance.

And we got a whole 15-20 minutes. The decision centered on the claim by Poulos, et al, that they had a Certified Parliamentarian on their side and we didn’t. Turns out their parliamentarian isn’t certified at all.

Boy are you ever paranoid, Arne, suggesting people were planted by the other party. How ridiculous you look. Maybe you don’t realized how the process works. Let me explain it. We were elected by Republicans, not appointed like Poulos and Linn. Maybe they were planted by Del Beccarro (they were).

I am truly disappointed with you Mr. Simonsen. You ought to know better.

Hats off to Mr. Hambrick. While I have never met you sir, I do look forward to the day that I get that chance. You seem to be a straight-up, common sense kinda guy… and I like that.

The GOP could use more people like you! Keep up the good work!

Arne Simonsen

Oh, Ken, where to start?

Unlike you, I was elected to public office; the Antioch City Council twice.

I was elected President of the East Bay Division of the League of California Cities.

I was appointed by the President of the League of California Cities to Chair their Revenue & Taxation Policy Committee.

I was elected to Chair the California Delta Protection Commission.

I was elected twice to the Contra Costa Republican Party for District 5.

Need I go on?

In other words, if I didn’t know Roberts Rules of Order, how to run a meeting, and work with individuals with whom I may disagree, I would never have held those position and we would have never achieved any success.

My question is: why did you run for the CCRP? Was it to help raise funds? Was it to help at the phone banks? Was it to walk door to door for our candidates? Was it to volunteer for one of our fundraising committees?

Elwood

Only one thing can be said about this thread:

Res ipsa loquitur

RR, Uninvited Columnist

If the CC GOP had more guys like Ken, it would go the way of the Whigs.

Common Tater

Thanks for the link to the petition.

Cogito, ergo spud.

(I think, therefore I yam.)

BGR

CommonTater et al

no one has to register at Halfway To Concord

to view or dowload the file

the PDF file lives at Scribd and us downloadable or printable from there just click thru no registration required

it is better for the 1.5 mb file To be stored off site as scribd provides embed info